Hypnosis or Trance is actually a very natural state which we have all been in before and go in and out of regularly! Why do I say that, you ask! Hypnosis is primarily a state of selective attention. We regularly make choices unconsciously on a daily basis. For example, you might close the garage door electronically without even thinking about it. You might take a medication each morning automatically or put your socks on without paying attention to which foot goes first. There are primarily four ways we naturally go into hypnosis.
1. Rhythm-The rhythm of your breath can be one way to go into hypnosis. Just being absorbed in paying attention to breath is an easy way to go into hypnosis. Sitting on a rocking chair, hearing the sound of waves coming in and out, or just listening to a sound, like the clack-clack sound of a long train on it’s tracks, can all be natural ways to induce a trance state.
2. Focusing-If you have ever been so engrossed in a book or project, that time slipped by unnoticed where it felt like ten minutes but was way more than that, you have been in hypnosis. If you were in a totally consuming conversation in a diner where people left as it got late into the night but you didn’t even notice until you looked up at the clock, you were in a trance-like state.
3. Defocusing-This is where you may have been looking at an object, candle, a light, etc. where your eyes kind of relaxed into a dreamy like state and things got a little blurry, like when our eyes are just too tired to focus, you could go into hypnosis.
4. Dissociation-This is an unconscious state where our mind is split into two focuses. For example, if you were on the telephone in a very engaging conversation while you were doodling on a piece of paper you may not have realized until afterwards, that you produced some interesting images. There is a technique in Hypnosis called automatic handwriting where, while in trance, a person might be asked to remember certain things from the past or be asked certain questions where the responses seem to come from somewhere out of the blue.
So, you might fight hypnosis to be much more easy to do on your own that one might imagine. Just pay attention to the four doorways throughout the week and you’ll be surprised how natural it is to begin to go into the state we call Hypnosis!!
